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A]V UiVDlTIDED COUTVTItY. 



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HON. LABAN T. MOORE, 

OF KENTUCKY. 






Dkliverkd in the House of R^p^sentatives, February 5, 1861. 



tion tliff^^art Jfi>omi4;lje- Sel( 



The House having under consideration tliS'^^artJfromi^lje^ Select Committee of 
Thirty-three— 

Mr. MOORE, of Kentucky, said : 

Mr. Speaker : During all the general debates in this House which have occurred since 
I have been a member^ I have been silent, because I believed that nothing which I could 
say would hare any influence on the members of this House; and, so far as my constitu- 
ents are concerned, I prefer to address them face to face. Fearing, however, that those 
generous constituents who have honored me with the position which I humbly hold here 
as their Representative might regard my silence at this time as the result of culpable 
indifference to the sad drama which is now being enacted in our national theater, I shall 
attempt, from an imperative sense of duty, to say something for the preservation of my 
country, if it be alone faintly to articulate, " God save the Union !" In pronouncing this 
benediction, I but feebly utter the devotion of my people to the Union of those States. 

Kentucky, sir, cannot be disloyal to this Union while there is impressed upon her bo- 
som the lessons of her most gifted son, by the monument which marks the resting place 
of his mortal remains. The eloquent Clay, when speaking on an occasion somewhat 
similar to this, when our Union was trembling from " turret to foundation stone" under 
the severe pressure of the slavery agitation, said : 
" It vaay be asketl me when I shall be for a dissolution of this Union. I answer, never, never, never f 

In thus speaking he contemplated this Government as a beneficent protector, not as 
an engine of oppression and wrong. He believed that its powers would be exerted for 
the vindication of rights and the demolition of wrong. He contemplated it as fulfilling- 
the designs of its founders, as they are marked out in the Constitution, and not as an 
agent to execute the behests of party. This constitutional Union he would never con- 
sent to destroy. Kentucky, from her patriotic heart, gives a responsive echo to the sen- 
timent of her eloquent dead. 

I am not one of those, sir, who believe that a State has a constitutional rigiit to secede 
from this Union. The claim of such a right is an uujust animadversion upon the wis- 
dom and patriotism of the founders of the Federal Government. It is an insult to their 
sagacity, to pretend that they implanted in the Constitution, which they designed as the 
vital agent of this Government, and to be immortal, the seeds of its own destruction. 
An examination of the debates, cotemporaneous with the adoption of the Constitution 
by the several States, will, I think, satisfy any mind in the impartial search for historic 
truth, that such a right was never contemplated by any of the States, at the time they 
formed the Union. Take, for instance, the exposition of the mode for destroying the 



Gciienil Govenimeiil, given in the Virginia conveution by one of its bitterest ujjpo- 
nents — I mean Mr. Heury. He said: 

"I have said that I tboiiglit this a consolidateil Govcniinent. I will uuw prove it. Will tho great rights 
of the people bo secure by this Government ? Suppose it should prove oppressive: how can it i>o altered '; 
Our bill of rights declares 'that a majority of the conimunity hath an indubitable, inalietiable, and inde- 
feasible right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most couiiucive to the public 
weal.' I have just proved that one-tenth, or less, of the people of America, a most despicable minority, 
way prevent this reform or alterution. Suppose the people of Virginia should wish to alter their govern- 
ment : can a majority of them do it ? No ; because they are connected with other men ; or, in other word.s. 
consolidated with otiier States."' ■'' * * * * '• This Government is not Virginia, but an 

American Government." 

From tbis, it is plain to see that Mr. Henry regarded tlie Constitution of the United 
States as the formation of an independent and sovereign Government, so far as the 
powers were granted to that Government by that instrument, and one which could be 
dissolved or destroyed alone by the same i>ower3 that created it — the people — the sove- 
reign people There being nothing in the Constitution warranting the right of seces- 
sion, the politicians of the Calhoun school claim that the right is inherent in State sov- 
cignty ; and as an argument to sustain this position, they contend that the Constitution 
was formed as a compact between coequal sovereign States ; that having no common 
arbitor to whom they can refer the question of the violation of that compact, the States 
must necessarily judge of its infractions and adopt their own measures of redress ; and 
those States which have passed ordinances of secession ju^:tify their unconstitutional 
acts by charging upon certain northern States of this CTnion a violation of the Consti- 
tution, or the '• compact of Union," as they term it, by the enactments of personal li- 
berty bills ; and that a violation of a compact by one of the parties relieves the other 
from its obligations. 

Now, sir, how stand the facts in this particular? There :ire some of the northern 
States who have, in a spirit of malignity, and in criminal disregard of their constitu- 
tional obligations, passed laws to prevent the execution of the fugitive slave law. These 
States, though, form but a portion of the parties to this compact. A vast majority of 
the parties have been faitliful to their eugagements ; yet the secessionists, with a bald 
sophistry unworthy the name of argument, contend that they have a right to abolish the 
General Government; they have a right to violate all the engagements which they have 
entered into with the Federal Union and the States forming it ; they have a right to 
deprive the faithful States of their share of the blessings resulting from the Union, be- 
cause some others of the. States have been faithless to their constitutional duty. This, 
sir, is visiting the iniquities of the sinful upon the heads of the innocent. This is a 
heresy finding no apology except in the radicalism of the times. 

I contend that the States have, in the Constitution, chosen a common abiter to settle 
the question arising under that instrument, which, from its organization, is eminently 
proper to decide between the separate States or the contending sections. That arbiter 
is the Supreme Court, the judges of which are appointed by the President, with the ad- 
vice and consent of the Senate. That they might have no political partiality to serve, 
and no partisan malice to satisfy, they are appointed for life, that they may be indepen- 
dent of President antJ- Senate. That this is the chosen arbiter of the States and the 
people, the Constitution and the fathers of the Republic both establish. In section one 
of article three of the Constitution, will be found the clause which vest the judicial 
power ot the Government. It is as follows : 

" The judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court and iu such inferior courta 
ao the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish," i-c. 

In the second section, it says : 

"The judicial power shall extend to all ciaes in law and equity arising under this Constitution, the laws 
of the United States," &c. 

Is it not plain, from this, that the Supreme Court must decide upon the constitution- 
ality of the laws of Congress, and that their mandate must be obeyed by the loyal citi- 
zens of the Government? If so, then is there not full and ample security in this de- 
partment of the Government against the unconstitutional aggressions of any section or 
party? In farther proof of the position that the Supreme Court is the proper forum to 
settle questions arising under the Constitution, and that their decrees are binding, not 
only on the States and the people, but on the co-ordinate branches of the Government, 
I will adduce the evidence of one of the early fathers of the Republic. Mr. J. Mason, 
in a debate on the judiciary system of the Government in 1800, iu the Congress of the 
United States, spoke as follows : 

" It will be found that tho people, informing their Constitution, meant to make the judges as indepen- 
dent of the Legislatures as of the Executive; because the duties they have to perform call upon them t^ 
expound not only the laws, but the Constitution also, in which ia involved the pownr to check the Leglsla- 
tore. In case it should pass any law in violation of the Constitutloti." 



Who doer, not remember with what withering denunciation thegreat statesman and jurist, 
Daniel Webster, denounced this right of secession, and vindicated the province of the 
Supreme Court to decide questions arising between the States and the Federal Govern- 
ment and its integral parts ? Hence, sir, the ground upon which the secessionist places 
his right to secede is as baseless as the fabric of a dream. I now dismiss, sir, this 
question of secession, which my State repudiated in 1833, when there was in her coun- 
cils the wisest of her sons. 

Upon the decisions of the Supreme Court I base the right of the southern States to 
have granted to them the propositions submitted by my colleague, the gifted, the elo- 
quent, the patriotic Crittenden, whose protracted life has been spent in the services of 
his country, and who, if uow, in hi.s ripe old age, could save it from destruction, 
might — 

•' AV'rap the drapery of his couch around him, 
Aud lio dowu to ploaaant dreams." 

The first aud most important demand we make upon the North is to guaranty to us 
our right to an equal participation in the settlement and possession of the Territories, 
belonging to the United States, and that this guarantee shall be given in the Constitu- 
tion itself. This is not asking a further right under the compact. It is simply asking 
that a right which we have may be made secure from violation. We are eutilled to this 
upon every principle of justice and equity. The Territories now belonging to the Union 
were acquired by conquest and purchase. The armies of the South paid, as part pur- 
chase money for them, their blood. Upon the battle-fields of Mexico will be found the 
bones of many of the sons of the South, who fell struggling for the very territory which 
you uow propose to appropriate exclusively to yourselves. 

1 do notliketo be fastidious; but, sir. i must be excused for saying that the South 
contributed a much greater number of men, and lost far more blood, in the acquisition 

of this territory tha.n did the North. In this blood-bought territory we ask our rights 

nothing more, nothing less. In addition to our rights to go to these territories and take 
with us our property — ay, sir, our slave property — on principles of justice and equity, 
we have the further argument to urge, in opposition to your proposed exclusion of us 
from it, the Constitution confers no right to acquire territory, which Avas admitted by 
one of the greatest political philosopliers the world has ever produced — I mean Mr. .Jef- 
ferson. At the time he purchased the Louisiana Territory, he said he had no warrant 
in the Constitution for such acquisition, but the overruling necessities of the nation 
justified the extra-constitutional measure. Then, sir, if there is no power given to the 
General Government to acquire territory, there wiis no power vested in iTto exclude 
from any such territories any of the citizens of this Government, or their property. 

We do not claim, as was asserted by the gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. Stanto.v,] that 
the Constitution gives us right of property in our slaves, or right to go with those slaves 
to the Territories ; but we contend that neither Congress nor a Territorial Legislature 
can inhibit our ingress with our slaves into the Territories, nor can they divest our 
right of property while there, during the existence of a territorial government. Our 
right of property was given by a State sovereignty, and no power, short of State sover- 
eignty, can divest it. In this opinion I am sustained by the decision of th- Supreme 
Court of the United States, rendered in the celebrated case of Dred Scott. Vet we are 
told by some of the representative men of the Republican party, that that court has no 
power to control the action of the legislative department of the Governmint; and in 
defiance of that decision, they will prohibit the immigration of slaves into the Terri- 
tories, and that, rather than submit to the unwarrantable assumption of power by the 
Supreme Court, they will resort to revolution. 

One of tlie members from the State of New York, wliose declarations arc always ma- 
turely considered and highly respected by his party, [Mr. Conklinc;,] in a S])eech' which 
In- delivered last winter on this floor, gave utterance to the following tirade against the 
Supreme Court, and threat of resistance against its decrees. He says of that Court, and" 
its opinion in the case before referred to : 

■• In its tii-dt approach it will »wm a question of Htavery or freedom, but it will turn out to be a conflict 
of prerogatives and ptiwers — a collision of forces in the Government affecting more or less the late of every 
popular ripht. A powerful party will bo found in the country maintaining that the Supreme Court of the 
United States Ih clothed with authority to say what laws Couffress may, and what laws Congress may not 
pftRS: aud that whenever this authority has been e.xercised, neither the K.xecutive nor Congress may over- 
Htop the limits it has prescribed ; on tlu^ other hand, organizations, policies, and eternal principles will cry 
out against imperial assumptions, and the issue will stretch far beyond even the undiscovcrable confines of 
the one pervading question of human slavery." * * * "* " Such an epoch could not occur in 
the history of the present generation unaccompanied by untoward results; vioUnt reviUsimis would end in 
a restoration of the philosophy of the past, ami constitutional majorities, at whatever cost, would sternly 
assume the sway."' 

Thi3 ad raptandum argument might be made to apply with equal torce against either of 



the other departmeiils of the Government., when in the exercise of their proper functions, 
and would equally justify rebellion against the law<8 of Congress or defiances to the proc- 
lamations of the Executive. Why is there to be a conflict of powers and prerogatives ? 
The Constitution has well defined the powers of the National Legislature, and definitely 
conferred jurisdiction on the courts. Upon what, then, will be based the organization 
which shall cry out against imperial assumptions in the court when it is strictly con- 
fining itself to the proper sphere of its duty, except upon the unwarrantable and uncoo- 
constitutional assumptions of a numerical majority, which will not stop at the barriers 
of the Constitution, but overleap all restraints and assert the infernal dogma of pirates, 
that "might is right !'' 

This is a kindred claim to the one set up by the seceding States of the South, which 
has produced revolution in our nation, and threatens with sudden and irrevocable de- 
struction the dearest rights of mankind. If the North can resist the enforcement of 
the decrees of the courts, the South can nullify the laws of the General Government; 
and I would recommend to the lips of the gentleman from New York the bitter chalice 
he has prepared for the South. And by the way, Mr. Speaker, these declamatory ap- 
peals of the northern Representatives against the powers of the General Government 
Have gone far, very far, to alienate and disaffect our people of the South from the na- 
tion. It is in vain we appeal to them in the name of the Constitution; for the Consti- 
tution, they say, you have disregarded. And now, sir, to place our right, founded in 
justice, sanctioned by equity, and confirmed by the Supreme Court — our right to settle 
in the Territories of this Government with our property — we ask that you give us a 
constitutional guarantee which will place it beyond cavil. 

Mr. Speaker, I propose to devote a few moments to the investigation of the rights of 
southern slave-owners to reclaim their fugitive slaves in the free States of the Union, 
and the power and duty of the General Government to afford, by adequate legislation, 
the execution of this right expressly asserted in the Constitution. With but few ex- 
ceptions, the efficient law passed in 1850 is acknowledged by the Representatives of 
northern constituencies as constitutional and obligatory ; yet many of the northern 
States have passed laws, commonly called personal liberty bills, which are calculated to 
impair the efficiency of that law ; and were those States which have enacted those laws 
border States, but few escaping negroes would be returned to their masters ; and the 
loss of property in the border States, which now annually amounts to hundreds of 
thousands of dollars, would be increased to millions; in fact, it would completely de- 
plete the middle southern States of their immense slave wealth. But, sir, these uncon- 
stitutional laws are confined chiefly to the far-off eastern and northern States, where 
fugitive slaves scarce ever go ; yet they are conceived in a spirit of malignant hatred to 
the institutions of the South, and in direct violation of chartered right; and they are 
insulting to southern citizens, and are defiant declarations against the General Govern- 
ment. Their repeal is loudly clamored for by southern States, and unquestionably de- 
manded by the spirit of the times. 

The law of 1850 is said to be unnecessarily severe, and its rigorous provisions should 
be modified. 1 express now ray readiness to correct any of the faults in the bill, espe- 
cially as it is urged that it will render more certain its execution. As a southern Rep- 
resentative, I delight in no legislation which grates harshly upon the sensibilities 
of the northern people ; [ only want to be protected in my rights. Intimately connected 
with that clause in the Federal Constitution for the reclamation of fugitive slaves, is 
that which requires the surrender of fugitives from justice. This clause of the Consti- 
tution has been shamelessly violated by different northern Governors; by Hon. Wxi. H. 
Sewahd, when Governor of New York, who refused to deliver a negro thief on the ap- 
plication of the Executive of Virginia ; by the Governor of Iowa, who also refused to 
deliver to Virginia a fugitive criminal ; and by Governor Dennison, of Ohio, who refused 
to surrender to Kentucky, Lago, who had committed a crime in that State and had fled 
to Ohio. In each of these cases the crimes imputed to the fugitives were connected with 
the institution of slavery. 

Now, sir. the extradition clause of the Constitution is so broad that it embraces all 
cases of crime, and so plain that nothing but a dangerous refinement of learning can 
mistake it. The act of Congress j)assed in 1 793, to carry out this provision of the Con- 
stitution, is as comprehensive as the clause of the Constitution, and the intention of the 
legislators as transparent as words can make ideas. In the second section of article 
four of the Constitution, it says : 

" A person charged in any State witli treason, lelouy, or other crime, who ehall fleu from justhe, and lio 
found in another State, Bhall,on the demanJ of the executive authority of the State from which he fled, be 
delivered up, to be removed to the State having jurisdiction of the crime.'' 

The first section of the act of 1 79.^ is as follows : 



•• Be it enacted, dx.. That whenever tlio executive authority of any State in the Union, or of either of the 
Territories northwest or south of the river Ohio, shall demand any person as a fugitive from justice of tlie 
executive authority of any such State or Territory to whIcU such person shall have tied, and shall moreover 
produce the copy of an indictment found or afiidavit made before a magistrate of any State or Territory a.i 
aforesaid, charging the person so demanded with having committed treason, felony, or other crime, certi- 
fied as authentic by the Governor or chief mngistrato of the State or Territory from whence the person so 
charged tied, it shall be the duty of the executive authority of the State or Territory to which such person 
shall have fled to cause him to be arrested aud secured, and notice of the arrest to bo given to the executive 
authority making such demand, or to the agent," Ac, "and cause the fugitive to be delivered up." 

No argument I can offer will add any additional force to the obligations of this clause 
of the Constitution, and the law of Congress made in pursuance thereof. I have, du- 
ring this session, introduced a bill giving construction to the law of 1793, which so in- 
terprets it as to embrace all crimes, either those at common law or those created by 
statute. I think this bill should pass, that this source of irritation might be removed. 

Mr. Speaker, it has been urged by some of the southern Representatives, that the 
Constitution gives us right of transit through, and sojourn in, the free States of thi.s 
Union. This I do not believe, aud will not, through policy, pretend to assert it. I will 
not sacrifice truth to expediency, nor jeopardize just demands by complicating with 
them unjust exactions. I think, however, comity, friendship, and good neighborhood, 
should prompt our northern brothers to place upon their statute-books laws allowing 
us these privileges, that we might visit our relations and friends in the free States, and 
take with us our domestics for comfort and convenience. This would be a return to 
the days of brotherly love which characterized the intercourse of our fathers. 

Many years ago, the great Republican State of New York graced her State code with 
a law of this character, and the distinguished Senator from that State [.Mr. SewardJ 
opposed its repeal then; his words glowed with the generous warmth of friendship and 
were redolent with sentiments of hospitality. In 1838 Gerrit Smith wrote a letter, ask- 
ing Mr. Seward if he was in favor of the repeal of this law, and he replies as follows: 

•'Your third question is, "Are you in favor of a repeal of the laws which now authorize the importation of 
slaves into thi.'i State, and their detention as such during a period of nine months ?' 'ihe provisions of our 
statute on the subject of slavery are as follows: The statute declares that all persons born in this State after 
its enactment shall be free, and that all persons that shall be brought (synonymous in your communication 
with imported) into this State as slaves, shall be free, with two exceptions; the last of which exceptions is, 
that 'any person, not being an inhabitant of the State, may bring with him any person lawfully held by him 
in slavery in the State from whence he came, and may take such person with him from this State, but the 
person so held in slavery shull not reside or continue in this State more than nine months; and if such resi- 
dence be continued beyond that time, such person shall btt freti.' It is this last exception to which your 
questi^ refers. 

'•Does not your inquiry give too broad a meaning to the section ? It certainly does not confer upon any 
citizen of a State, or of any country, or any citizen of any other State, except the owner of slaves in another 
State by virtue of the laws thereof, the right to bring slaves into this State, or to detain them hereunder 
any circnmstaucos as such. 1 understand your inquiry, therefore, to mean whether I am in favor of a re- 
peal of the law which declares, in aubstanee, that any person from southern and southwestern States who 
may be traveling to or from, or passing through, the State, may bring with him and take with him any per- 
.son lawfully held by him in slavery in the State from whence he came, provided such slaves do not remain 
hero more than niue months." ****** "Dut. gentlemen, being desirous to be en- 
tirely candid iu this communication, it is proper that I should add, that I am not convinced that it would 
be either wise, expedient, or humane, to declare to our fellow-citizens of the southern and southwestern 
States that if they tra,vel to or from, or pass through New York, they shall not bring with them the atten- 
dants whom custom or education or habit may have rendered necessary to them. I have not been able to 
discover any good object to be attended by snchan act of inhospitality." 

Now, sir, I appeal, in the name of the delightful recollections of the past, the events 
of the present, and the undiscoverable issues of the future, cannot the Republicans of 
this day follow the salutary advice of their political leader, given twenty years ago, and 
re-enact the hospitable laws of that period ? 

I hail, with pride and satisfaction, the propositions of the gentleman from Massachu- 
setts, [Mr. Adams,] the illustrious son of a still more illustrious sire, whose intellectual 
brightness reflects back the lustre of a brilliant ancestry, and radiates a halo of glory 
along the pathway of his progeny, as a return to the teachings of the earlier and better 
days of the Republic. His proposition to place in the Constitution an insuperable bar- 
rier against the abolition of slaverj- in the States, except by their consent, will go far to 
allay the apprehensions of the southern pcoj)le iu regard to the hostile purposes of the 
northern people. But, sir, it iloes not go quite far enough; it should emlirace within its 
prohibitions the District of Columbia and the arsenals, dock-yards, and other places 
within the southern States, over which Congress has exclusive right of legislation. 
Gentlemen, members, of the Republican party, say on this floor that they do not pro- 
j)ose to abolish slavery in these jilnces. Why not, then, give us the guarantee in the 
Constitution? It will do you no harm, but us much good, either imaginary or real. 

Now, Mr. SiK-aker, I have, in a cursory manner, canvassed the demands of the South on the 
people of the North. I have asked nothing which they cannot grant without the sacrifice of 
a single principle ; nothing but what is warranted by the example of the patriot founders 
of the Federal Government. They recognized slavery in the Constitution, in different 



6 

clauses, and we ouly ask you to guarantee to us the rights which they acknowledged. 
But I am told that the draughtsman of that sacred instrument, conceived in the conii- 
dence of mutually dependent friendship, intended as an ample shield of protection to 
all these interests, refused to characterize their ideas with proper words, and would not, 
through false delicacy, use the word "slave" in the Constitution, lest it might be 
regarded as a countenance of the institution of slavery. I spurn this unjust and un- 
founded imputation upon the candor and frankness of the framers of the Constitution. 
They used the very words best calculated to reflect their intentions. In the clause for 
the rendition of fugitives from labor, which was intended to embrace apprentices as 
well as African slaves, they use the words "held to service or labor," which characterize 
both relations ; and, sir, it is a remarkable fact that the first fugitive law passed 
under this Constitution was passed upon petitions from citizens of Pennsylvania, whose 
apprentices had escaped from them and fled to other States. The word " slave" in this 
clause would not have signified apprentice, and hence would not have expressed the 
intention of the framers of that instrument. 

In further proof that no such motive as the one attributed influenced the omission of 
the word slave in the Constitution, I would refer gentlemen to the debates in their own 
conventions, which adopted that instrument, where they will find that they called 
things by their proper names, and understood clearly the recognition of slavery therein. 
Mr. Davis, of Massachusetts, a member of the convention of that State, said that — 

••The black inhabitants of the aouthern States must be considered either as slaves, and as .so much property' 
or CreemeQ." 

You do not contend they are freemen ; that they are slaves follows as a corollory. Mr. 
Speaker, with anxious and' aching heart I ask if the Republican party, upon such pre- 
texts as these, intend to let the destruction of such a Government as this take place? 
Will they not give up these political dogmas for the Constitution, and sacrifice their 
partisan prejudices on the altar of their country? I invoke them, in the name of human 
liberty, in the name of oppressed humanity, in the name of our common ancestry, in the 
name of the national peace, in the name of mothers and children, in the name of fathers 
and sons, to save this mighty fabric of human liberty from impending ruin! Its con- 
struction cost too much human suffering and patriotic blood to let it be demolished 
without an effort to save. How inexplicable the difference, how astounding the stoicism 
which treats with indecent levity the impassioned appeals of patriotism for help in this 
the severest crisis of our national existence ! 

Mr. Speaker, when the Pemberton mills crumbled beneath their own ponderous 
weio-ht, or fell from defects in their architectural design, burying beneath their ruin.s 
many human bodies, as the sad story was heralded to every point of our continent by 
the invisible post-boy, you might have seen gathered upon the streets of your cities, or 
the thoroughfares of the towns, groups of individuals discussing the dreadful catas- 
trophe. The aged would heave their measured lamentations, while the young would 
give utterance to quic"k and impulsive exclamations of horror and affright; timid and 
soft-hearted woman Avould sicken at the details of the calamity, and man's stern heart 
would quicken its pulsation at the recital. Our whole nation was startled by the shock 
of their fall, and all our people were in mourning for the dead. The inquiry was at 
once instituted, how did it happen ; upon whom rests the dread responsibility of the 
tragedy? If our people are so sensitive to an occurrence of this kind, how is it to be 
accounted for that they are so heedless of thtvmighty events now crowding upon us ? 
The occurrence in Massachusetts was but the breaking of the smallest piece of furniture 
in one of the smaller chambers of our great temple. It is not surely because we do not 
love the Union. It is not that it has been worthless to us. It is not because it has^ 
performed its mission and hangs like an incubus upon our necks. It is not for any of 
these reasons. It is because the people have been demagogued until their ears are 
deafened to all admonitions, even to the timely warnings of the patriot watchman on 
the battlements of State. The people love this Union, and have every reason' for sodoing. 
For what that could be accomplished by artificial means has it not accomplished ? 
In the vestibule of our national temple we threw off the yoke of Britain's govern- 
ment; we bid defiance to her disciplined armies ; we met her panoplied hosts on the 
fields of war, and achieved our independence by the severe arbitrament of the sword. 
Then we were covered alone by the threadbare canvass of the Articles of Confederation. 
Beneath the broad canopy of the Constitution, and within the solid walls of the Union, 
we have spread our dominion over a continent; we have sent our civilization along the 
course of the sun, until its triumphs greet its earliest rays and fling back its latest 
beams ; we have felled forests ; we have razed hills ; we have ploughed the rivers ; we 
have scaled the mountains ; we have constructed railroads; we have built cities ; we 
have made States ; we have fought battles; we have achieved victories ; we- have created 



empires ; wo have made a mighty Armada, and have sent the birds of our commerce to 
Ijathe their plumage in every sea. Before the smoke of our camp-fires the aborigines 
have vanished as the hosts of Assyria fell before the angel of the Lord. That race 
which built its tents on the rocks of Penobscot has been driven westward, until they 
have found temporary hunting-grounds amid the fastnesses of the Rocky Mountains. 
That people, who once spread their ensigns of existence all over our country, have 
gathered the remnant of their life along our western horizon, which is so thin and 
gauzy as to give but a faint russet hue to the disk of the setting sun ; the tokens of 
their rude arts have been buried beneath the shadows of our superior civilization ; all 
these things have not been performed by the instrumentality of the Union, but all, 
and still more, have been performed under its ample legis. From a feeble mendicant at 
the knees of France, asking her assistance against the despotism of England, we have 
grown to such majesty and strength as to defy the world in arms. Our productions 
fill the warehouses of foreign ports, and our breadstuffs have supplied the gaunt jaws of 
famine. We have strewn the South with the seeds of cotton, and a " king" has sprung 
to being from its soil. Our art has found a cabinet for its curious designs in a palace 
in the heart of our nation, and our science has hung its trophies on the " outer walls" of 
civilization. Our mariners have knocked for entrance at the granite gates of the Arctic 
sea, and our enterprise has unfurled its banners on the pyramids of the " Pharaohs." 
Our statesmen have given new lessons to political economists. Our orators have filled 
the world with their eloquence, and the walls of despotism have crumbled at the 
sounds. Our jurists have given new codes to jurisp."udence, and our lawyers have 
written compends to the laws of nations'. The wealth of our cities would well com- 
pare with the glittering splendors of the " Queen of the Desert," and the happiness of 
our people hath nothing with which to be compared. 

Our Constitution opens up avenues from the humblest walks of life to the great cita- 
del of fame, and our laws throw around the poorest of its subjects the panoply of pro- 
tection. The genius of our government permeates all classes of society, and recognizes 
the separate existence of all our people ; the rich have to acknowledge the rights of the 
poor, and the strong the places of the weak. Under the charter of our liberties the 
States have to give a republican form of government to the people, and the larger State 
must respect the sovereignty of the smaller. Our Federal system presents the picture of 
a natural family; the Federal head supervises the whole, and each State performs its 
separate functions. The Union affords the general protection, and each State increases 
the aggregate wealth. The diversified interests of the separate States make them 
mutually dependent on each other. The South produces cotton and sugar; the North 
wheat and rye; the West furnishes the supplies ; and the East manufactures the crude ma- 
terials into articles for use. 

A beautiful harmony would have pervaded the whole of our government had it not 
been for the machinations of traitors and flinatics. They, for difierent reasons and 
various motives, have sought to destroy it. Prominent among these reasons are the 
following. Some of our citizens, too lazy to work, seek an easier mode of gaining sub- 
sistence in piracy and fiUibustering. Our laws pronounce the penalty of death against 
those who thus oftend, and they want to avoid that penalty by destroying the lawgiver. 
Some, from an unholy ambition to be regarded the grea*." philanthropists and humani- 
tariansof the age, seek to give universal freedom to felon and slave. Our Constitution 
recognizes the condition of each, and they would tear it in. fragments to accomplish the 
purpose of freeing both. Others, and a still larger class, are ambitious for fame and 
position. Finding they have no chance in a Government of the magnitude of ours, thev 
seek to diminish its size to the calibre of their intellectual standard. 

And, Mr. Speaker, the means they are using to effect their ungodly work must suc- 
ceed if not arrested. How shall we arrest it ? I say by concession. It was by conces- 
sion our government was founded, and nothing but compromise will perpetuate its 
existence. Starving and languishing industry implores us to concede; stagnant and 
crippled commerce invokes us to concede; an outraged and indignant people demands 
that we concede ; a provoked yet merciful God in thunder tones commands us to con- 
cede. A God was sacrificed that a world might be saved. Can we not sacrifice the 
demon of sectional hate to save a country like this? 

It has been suggested by some that disunion may be prevented by a resort to force. 
This is using the wedge to connect the log. It is keeping the peace by declaring war. 
I submit, sir, that an attempt to coerce recusant States would solidify the South, and 
bring upon the plains of war, fighting for their section, Kentucky's sons, whose deeds 
of valor have heretofore been displayed alone for the honor of the whole nation. To 
say that no vein of Kentucky would bleed in such a war is to ignore the history of her 
gallant dead in all of the past, for their valor is written in blood upon the sands of the 
northern lakes, and traced in fossil records on the arid deserts of the far-off South, 



8 

Her acute ear haa always caught the first note of the tocsin of war, and her agile feet 
have r.lways been found in the path of battle. If war must come, in the vanguard look 
for her troops, and where the fight is fiercest and the missiles deadliest may be seen the 
white plumes of her chivalrous boys, waving like Ney's amid the legions of France. 
No army can be marched through her borders to invade a sister State without making 
every plain therein a battle-field, and every mountain pass a Thermopylaj. Other means 
must be used to save the Union. Can they not be found? I hope, I trust, they can. 
Let it not be said of the American people, as was recorded of ancient Israel, "The ox 
knoweth his owner, the ass his master's crib; but Israel doth not know ; my people 
doth not consider." 

W. H. MooBE, Printer, Penn. Avenue, corner of 1 1th street. 







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